This Is How The World Ends
by patronuses
Summary: At the end of the day, this is what's leftover. Vignettes, drabbles, and musings. Tony/Ziva.
1. One

A achingly simple project that I've wanted to do for a long time. Definitely expect multiple parts.

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><p>The morning light splays across the living room through threadbare curtains and pays no mind to the couple curled on the couch in the center of the room. The light spreads a pleasant warmth across their bodies but is overpowering and effectively blinding, and the man stirs when the sun shifts position and the light falls directly onto his face.<p>

He gingerly raises a hand to shield his eyes from the light and blinks hard to focus his vision of the room around him. He glances at the woman nestled against his shoulder and smiles when her cringe-worthy snore gets muffled by his shirt. He lets his hand fall from his face, and the sun still threatens to blind him, but he squints instead and places the hand on the small of her back.

He sneaks his hand beneath the hem her shirt and caresses the smooth skin there with the tips of his fingers.

He marvels at how real she feels and cranes his neck to brush his lips against the top of her head. The smell of her is all around him, and for the briefest of seconds, he closes his eyes and breathes in her essence and is fleetingly overcome by the fondness rising in his chest.

It chokes him and makes his chest tight, and he blinks hard, dazed and punch-drunk by the emotions fluttering within him. It takes him awhile to compose himself once more.

When she eventually squirms in his arms, her fists taking a hold of his wrinkled shirt and clinging to him, he pauses for a moment to make sure that she hasn't awoken, and when she falls back into her snores and buries her face further into him, he can feel his affection for her rise in his expression.

He makes no effort to hide it.


	2. Two

He tiptoes into her kitchen, careful to not make a sound or any give her any indication that he's entering, and he's halfway to her when she turns to face him with a knowing smirk on her lips and her arms crossed in front of her chest.

He freezes mid-step with only tip of his foot touching the ground, and it's like a scene from a movie. Caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He grins at her boyishly and guiltily, and the smirk on her face widens in response.

"Having fun?" she asks him as he straightens from his stealthy stance.

He covers the distance between them with the smile on his face never leaving and places his hands on the counter, pinning her to her place in front of him. Her body molds against his effortlessly, and it's a familiar action that makes him shudder momentarily. Even after all this time, the little things never fail to evoke a reaction.

He places a swift kiss to the crown of her head before pulling away just far enough that she can look up at him - with her arms still crossed in front of her defiantly, of course.

He brings his eyes down her level, bracing himself against the counter behind her.

"I'm having lots of fun," he answers her with a winning smile. He presses his lips together immediately afterward with a brief moment of shyness overtaking him before it's replaced by the amusement and utter happiness dancing in his expression.

Strands of his hair fall into his eyes, and she untangles her arms to reach up and push it back off his forehead. He studies her movement with his head tilted curiously before adjusting his gaze and staring into her eyes. She stares into his in return and the intensity sucks them in and neither can bring themselves to look away. A silent understanding passes between them, and the weight of what isn't being said makes the room feel so much smaller than it really is.

"You need a haircut," she says simply, but she runs her fingers through his hair tenderly, and he thinks that she may be trying to tell him something that he really isn't sure of yet.


	3. Three

He lies on his back with arms folded behind his head when he suddenly asks, "Do you ever think about what it would be like if Jenny was still around?"

She doesn't even look up from her book when she answers, "I do not waste my time with things that I cannot change."

He rolls onto his side to look at her. His head is propped up by his elbow, and he gives her a slight frown. She won't even humor him with an answer. He asks, "Surely, you're curious, though? I know you are. I know you've thought it too."

"I have, but it has not driven me insane."

He knows what she means, and his face darkens, a glaze forming over his eyes. Staring at the bedsheets thoughtfully, he recalls all the nights of drinking alone and quietly cursing the cards they had been dealt, going through all the different things he could have done differently, all the ways they could have avoided the outcome, all the ways it could have worked out, for her, for them -

"It drove_ me_ insane," he tells her softly.

Finally, she looks up from her book. She's giving him a long, scrutinizing stare, one that he returns eventually with a beat-down expression, and she tells him quietly with melancholy seeping into her dark eyes, "I know, but you should not have let it. You know that we did everything we could... And she was already dying."

He bolts upright faster than she could blink. Leaning forward on his palms, words pour from his mouth. "What? She was _dying_?"

She gently sets her book on the bedside table upside down to mark her page. She tilts her shoulders to face him with her legs still stretched out in front of her under his bedsheets, still at ease. With her eyebrows furrowing, she explains, "Ducky mentioned it once when he had too many drinks. He let it slip, yes?"

He presses his lips together and lets his gaze float to the ceiling. He's not entirely surprised, but he can't help but think that he should have known. And in a way, an irking, subliminal part of him always had. He wants to be angry with her because if she had told them that she was dying, it would have saved them - _him _- so much anguish.

But he can't muster up the fury.

He looks to his side and meets her gaze, wondering why she isn't angry. There isn't an ounce of bitterness in her voice or her expression, just a slight frown, and in fact, it almost looks like she's waiting patiently for him to recall something important.

And he does.

It dawns on him that it doesn't really matter in the end because Jenny is still dead, and she would have been either way. The way things turned out cannot be altered. The cards have already been dealt.

Their suffering came and went, and it's over.

There is no point in wasting time with things they cannot change.

However, he closes his eyes and breathes out in a quiet murmur, "Dammit Jenny."

When she reaches over and pats his knee, he sighs in defeat.


	4. Four

He moves to pass her at a crime scene, but he pauses at the last moment.

They stand side to side, shoulder to shoulder, looking in opposite directions.

They're alone in the apartment, and she allows herself to break her focus after she realizes that he isn't going to move from his spot until she looks at him.

She gives him a sideways glance with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. It has become a common sight on her face. There's a question in her expression, and despite there being a dead body less than ten feet away, she appears to be amused, happy even.

He ducks his head for the briefest of moments, close enough that their faces almost touch, close enough that she can feel his hot breath on her cheek. His nose brushes her skin in a way that makes her spine tingle.

"What?" she asks him, crime scene camera still clutched in her hands.

"Dinner tonight?" he whispers in her ear.

There's something intimate and private about the way he asks her that makes her step away and study him. There is a certain softness to his voice that she isn't used to hearing. She's heard bits and pieces of this voice, but she hasn't heard enough of it, and so it catches her off guard.

He offers her a sly grin and shrugs, awaiting her answer.

She fixes her perplexed expression and rolls her eyes at him, motioning to the dead body with a flourish of her hand.

"Smooth."

He doesn't have time to respond because the moment is lost when their boss strides into the tiny room and barks at them to get back to work. Both jump at the sound of his voice, the web of fond feelings and warmth being unravelled instantaneously. She immediately starts snapping pictures as she was before he interrupted her, and she hears him whistling as he walks away because he knows the answer is yes.


End file.
